February 10, 2001

Eminem and D1

Eminem plays aftershow party at Ministry Of Sound...

"If you got any alcohol or drugs," slurs blitzed mic-slanger Xzibit from the
lip of the heaving stage, "Get ready to pop that pill, drink that drink, smoke that smoke..." Oh yeah.

Mere hours after Eminem has left the stage of London Arena
after a show full of hi-octane gimmickry - animated talking drugs, feigned
pill-popping, (i)that(i) chainsaw - yer man Mathers has scurried back into
the spotlight for a little more prude-riling, albeit in a downsized, lo-tech setting.

D12 (aka Dirty Dozen, though there are only seven of 'em) are where Eminem goes to chill when he's tired of being the Slim Shady, a rough'n'ready cartel of insolent rhyme-manglers who stagger about the
stage sloshing glasses of booze about like some hip-hop Ratpack. You'd figure Mr Mathers their Sinatra, their lynchpin, and whenever he steps to
the crowd and the cheers jump up from startling to DEAFENING, that judgement seems justified, but if you squint through the fug you'll see
Eminem's glad to hang back tonight, selflessly join in the loping dance-routines and dodge the spotlight in favour of being part of the swarming onstage morass.

The tracks they play also lend themselves to such a facelessness. The likes of single 'I Shit On You'and 'I Don't Motherfucking Care' are heaving
posse cuts, rap boiled down to the most satisfyingly brutish chants and beat. The lyric of the latter - "I don't care if you don't like my shit / Cuz I was
high when I wrote that shit" - is the only glimmer of the razorsharp wordplay
which has earnt Eminem his controversial throne.

Cos forget the 'voice of a troubled nation' crap woolly-minded liberal apologists have excused the more repellent elements of Mathers' lyrical
ouevre as: there's no space for irony or insight in these tracks.

These are just crude cartoons, exhilarating and intoxicating for all the wrong reasons, an anti-social high you'll regret taking in the morning. But which
you'll reach for every time nonetheless. Eminem and his homies prove a
most thrilling and guilty secret.

Stevie Chick